1. Moving to Religions
“Welcome back from your trip to the East,” observed Tiger as we returned. “What have you achieved?”
“I punched the greatest tyrant in history and he appreciated my act.”
“He must have been a smarty.”
“He was!”
“But you are still in pre-historic times. You know little of that period so that Eve, Herodotus and Qin Shi Huang are readily selected. How will you find appropriate nominees in periods known to you from history classes?” asked Archie.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!”
“I agree,” opined Archie, “but now is the time to select the field of interest. You see, you punched the mother of mankind, the father of history and a super-tyrant. The three were central to human destiny. What will be the next area and its heroes?”
“My teacher in secondary school took the view that religion was central to humanity. A colleague of mine in New Zealand referred to mankind as Homo Religioso. Recent research suggests that even the Neanderthals had some rudimentary form of creed. This explains the burials that have been discovered.”
“Seems a fair choice,” opined Archie, who was reclining comfortably on Moti’s huge trunk. “All the same, you have a problem. Your panel decided that divinity was out of bounds. If you accept Christianity, Jesus Christ is not legible; but if you do not accept it, Jesus Christ has been a mortal. He therefore comes within your parameters. Similarly, if you do not adhere to a pagan religion, their gods are – from your point of view – mere mortals. Wouldn’t you like to punch Venus or Vulcan?”
“Bacchus is far more appealing,” I retorted, “but I don’t think he had an everlasting effect on humanity. Most drunks succumb without worshiping him.”
“How about the Buddha or Kông Füzî (Confucius)?” asked Tiger.
“They did not initiate new religions but, rather, preached a way of life,” I pointed out. “Neither claimed to be divine.”
“I agree,” said Archie. “Actually, most religions survived only if an able leader spread the word!”
His observation gave me food for thought. Akhenaton preached a form of monotheism, based on treating the sun disk as the only god. His faith, though, perished with him. Similarly, some sects of Judaism – like the Sadducees – disappeared altogether. We read about them only in Josephus’ works and in the Mishna, which disliked them. I concluded that the spread of religion depended mainly on the preachers’ skill and perseverance.
2. Opting for St. Paul
“I agree with Archie,” observed Tiger. “Your best course, Peter’le, is to decide which faith is the most wide-spread and investigate who was its leading preacher.”
“The most populous religion is Christianity,” pointed out Moti. “Islam comes close but the followers of Christ are more numerous.”
“Does this hold true in all recent epochs?” I wanted to know.
“I have no statistics preceding the middle of the 19th century,” conceded Moti. “Still, as we don’t regard Buddhism a religion, Christianity seems to take the lead since it spread.”
“In that case the answer is clear. Jesus Christ is the founder. Regrettably, he died on the cross. Further, most of his apostles concentrated on spreading the word to their brethren in faith. Sha’ul of Tarsos, commonly known as St. Paul, constituted himself the apostle to the nations. He traversed the Middle East and made converts. His credo is best illustrated by the Letter to the Romans. In my opinion, he was the greatest! It is true that Christians were persecuted even after his day. He did, though, inspire later adherents. Eventually Emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity and made it the religion of the Empire. The seed of Christianity’s success in the Roman Empire, though, was sewn by St. Paul. Perhaps it was unfortunate that no Roman Roads stretched into the Arabian Peninsula. If they had, St. Paul might have traversed them as preacher and converted the local population. As it happened the area was converted, seven centuries later, to Islam by Muhammad.”
“Then you have your man, Peter’le,” summed up Archie. “Actually, I am impressed. May I accompany you?”
“By all means,” I assured him. “Be my guest on this occasion.”
“But there is one remaining problem. St. Paul had a long odyssey – leading from Tarsos to his sad demise in Rome. I can appear to him during his confinement in a Roman prison. By then he had completed his work. But there was a much earlier turning point is his life. He was sent from Jerusalem with an assignment to persecute the Christian sect in Damascus. On his way he had a revelation, which metamorphosed him from a prosecutor to an adherent. Should I call on him on this occasion?”
“Did his full potential materialise on that occasion?” asked Tiger.
“Not really. It was the start of a new journey, a journey which led to his remarkable attainments.”
“In that case,” summed up Archie, “he was not as yet worthy of a punch. You better attend to him when his time on earth was drawing to its close.”
“I doubt if he, himself, appreciated his place in the history of mankind during his lifetime,” I mused.
“True,” replied Archie. “But that applies to each of your punchees.”